In late July, Sudan’s Vice-President Hasabo Abel Rahman announced the launch of a disarmament campaign in the Darfur and Kordofan areas, along with the re-organisation of state-allied militias in the region. According to presidential decree, illegal weapons and vehicles are to be handed over voluntarily to the paramilitary group, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) or local authorities. Following the voluntary submissions, Defence Minister Awad Ibn Ouf said they would collect arms from residents by force. Finally, various government militias recruited to fight the insurgency in Darfur are meant to merge into the RSF, an order opposed by the formerly pro-government Border Guard militia.

Both the president and deputy have cited in speeches that the free flow of illegal arms among Darfur citizenry as the “biggest threat to Darfur’s security” and that disarmament was the government’s “top priority”.

Darfur “a market for arms”

The need to curb the expansive arm trade in Darfur is palpable to all citizenry in the region. Over the past decade, more than 730 tribal clashes took place in Darfur leading to mass killings and displacement. Some 277 civilians have died in Darfur this year alone.

According to former South Darfur State official Hussein Mousi, the government started to distribute weapons to certain tribes in Darfur to quell the rebel insurgency in 2003 and continued doing so to present day, particularly in East and South Darfur states. For the past ten years the government is the single largest supplier of weapons in the region, Mousi told Nuba Reports. With arms via the government as well as flowing from neighbouring countries, “Darfur has turned into a market for arms,” he said.

So far, the disarmament programme has met little success due to the fears of insecurity by citizens, local tribal leaders claim. By August 21, no more than 179 weapons were collected in South Darfur despite a local inventory estimating around 17,000 arms within the state, news reports said. The lack of progress led Vice President Abdel Rahman a week later to announce during a forum a “shoot to kill” policy for those who resisted the disarmament campaign.

According to the Darfur Relief and Rehabilitation Centre, a civil society-based advocacy organisation, dozens of community leaders were arrested for refusing to cooperate in the disarmament campaign. Fulani tribal leader Abdullah Arshu spoke to Nuba Reports via prison. Arshu was detained earlier this year for his protests against violations by RSF forces against civilians in the region. “People need to protect themselves from insecurity, it is difficult [for the government] to collect arms in this environment.” Arshu believes the only way to disarm Darfur is by disarming everyone without exception, not focusing on certain tribes.

Mohamed Al Haj, a community leader from the Arabic Maaliya tribe, agrees. “The government should collect weapons from all sectors of society in Darfur, not target one tribe without the other.” Al Haj told Nuba Reports that authorities have arrested Arabic tribal leaders in East Darfur. “The government jails tribal leaders and then somehow requests to collect arms from individuals within the same tribe. This is not reasonable.” He added that by not collaborating with tribal leaders and rushing the disarmament campaign, authorities “will inevitably fail.” Al Haj and other tribal leaders do not believe the infamous RSF militia assigned to disarm civilians are neutral enough to carry out the exercise. “The majority of Rapid Support Forces are members of the Riziegat tribe,” he said. “There must be a joint force of all ethnicities to participate in the campaign.”

Opposition rebel leaders have also criticized the campaign, claiming that the pro-government militias such as the RSF must be disarmed first before leaving civilians defenceless.

But Interior Minister official Babeker Abu Samra said in August during a seminar on disarmament in Khartoum that tribal leaders should not fear and cooperate with the campaign. The police chief claimed police would be deployed across Darfur to provide protection to civilians as their arms are collected.

A notorious militia

The RSF, however, have a long track record of defying the police. In July, the RSF actually raided a police station in South Darfur’s capital city Nyala, forcing the police to evacuate the station after the RSF leader, Lt.-Gen. Mohamed Hamden Daglo (known as “Hemetti”) had allegedly purchased the land where the station was based. With a history of criminality, the pro-government militia are reportedly misusing their authority in the disarmament exercise in several villages in South Darfur State to steal money and other valuables, including stripping women naked in search of jewellery, the Centre reported.

The RSF’s central role in the disarmament campaign may be the key reason local Darfur communities are hesitant to support the effort and fear future conflict. According to data collected from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), the RSF may have terrorised citizenry far more than during the nadir years of the Darfur conflict when the government armed their predecessor, the Janjaweed militia. The militia is known for a number of human rights abuses against civilians in Darfur, abuses which triggered the International Criminal Court arrest warrant for President Omar Bashir in 2009. But Bashir re-branded the Janjaweed in 2014 under a new name, the Rapid Support Force – an allegedly more organised and loyal paramilitary force than their notorious forerunner. The Janjaweed attacked an estimated 1,000 and displaced 1.4 million civilians over a nine-year period from 2003 when the Darfur conflict began to 2012, according to ACLED research. But the RSF attacked 2,000 citizens over a two-year period from 2014 –doubling attacks against the public over a shorter timeframe. From 2013, the RSF actually displaced another 700,000 people, averaging around 20k more displaced per year under the RSF than the Janjaweed.

RSF in Nyala, South Darfur (Nuba Reports)

Signs of war

It is with this egregious record that Darfuri citizens fear submitting arms to the RSF and local armed groups fear a military takeover. Former Janjaweed and Al-Mahameed tribal leader Musa Hilal is particularly concerned. If disarmed, Hametti’s RSF could takeover his forces, even his tribal leadership. This is the key reason why Hilal categorically refused this month to integrate his Border Guard Force militia, an armed group of 3,000 Al-Mahameed tribesmen, into the RSF militia as stipulated by the government disarmament campaign.

On August 12, Hilal held a rally in his stronghold Misteriha, North Darfur State with thousands of supporters -–including traditional leaders and Border Guard Force commanders– and announced his readiness to confront the government army head on, local journalists said. A day earlier, Sudanese authorities arrested seven followers of Hilal on the Darfur-Libya border, accusing them of working with a rival Libyan rebel force. To intimidate further, the Sudanese army conducted the largest internal manoeuvre in its history near the strongholds of Musa Hilal this month with the participation of tanks and the air force.

The government is under international pressure to collect weapons. UN Security Council resolution 1556 calls for disarming and dismantling the Janjaweed militia and bringing their leaders to justice. Sudan is keen to fulfil this resolution and demonstrate cooperation with the international community in hopes the U.S. will lift economic trade sanctions in October.

But Khartoum is also interested in mitigating its once supporters-turned-antagonists and the disarmament campaign provides a useful tool to do so. Hilal’s forces believe the state-led weapons collection campaign is exactly that – a means to weaken them. “The collection of weapons is a plan [designed] by the state to provoke a new crisis in Darfur,” Hilal said during the rally in Misteriha.

Academic researcher Ahmed Hussein Adam concurs. A research associate at the University of London, Adam refers to the government’s disarmament campaign as “political fraud” –designed to trigger internal fighting between Darfur militias rather than remove the tools of violence in the region. Adam says Sudan’s weapon collection in Darfur is a divide-and-conquer tactic, igniting sedition to rid the government of militias after exhausting their purposes.

Whether Khartoum’s expressed intentions or not, it is clear the main victims of the government’s weapon collection in Darfur are the citizens themselves. On June 29, the UN Security Council voted to reduce the UN-AU Hybrid peacekeeping force in Darfur, UNAMID, by over a third of its troops and police officers. The resolution also called for the eventual closure of 18 team sites. A selective disarmament process that targets citizens and a reduced international presence will undoubtedly leave Darfur’s internally displaced –who represent nearly a third of the Darfur’s population– the most vulnerable.

This article was first published by Nuba Reports, and is reproduced here with their permission.

]]>https://www.africandefence.net/darfur-disarmament-local-leaders-fear-more-war-than-peace/feed/04053Destination of mystery Air Force Hercules flight revealedhttps://www.africandefence.net/destination-of-mystery-air-force-hercules-flight-revealed/
https://www.africandefence.net/destination-of-mystery-air-force-hercules-flight-revealed/#commentsMon, 31 Jul 2017 07:00:49 +0000https://www.africandefence.net/?p=3970Written by Dean Wingrin and Darren Olivier. This story was jointly investigated by defenceWeb and African Defence Review. The other version can be seen here.

A South African Air Force (SAAF) C-130BZ Hercules transport aircraft recently photographed at the remote South Atlantic island of Saint Helena was en route to Cuba, carrying the personal belongings of Cuban military technicians who were returning home after working in South Africa as part of Project Thusano.

This is according to multiple independent sources, who spoke to us on condition of anonymity.

The landing at Saint Helena Airport at 9:25AM (local time) on 18 July 2017 was the subject of intense speculation on local aviation and military forums, as it was the historic first arrival of a SAAF aircraft at the newly-opened and remote airport. At the time, the authorities on the island reported it only as a technical stop to take on fuel, with the aircraft departing one hour later to an unspecified destination.

However, after a detailed analysis of flight plans we can confirm that the aircraft, operated by 28 Squadron, was on a multi-day 13 000 km cargo mission from its home base at AFB Waterkloof near Pretoria to José Martí International Airport in Havana, Cuba.

The C-130 first flew from Waterkloof to Hosea Kutako International Airport in Namibia, where it refuelled, before undertaking the 5 to 6 hour 2 500 km to Saint Helena Airport. From there it was a 3 300 km flight to Guararapes International Airport in Recife, Brazil, where it spent the night. The next leg was a 3 500 km and nearly 7 hour flight to Grantley Adams International Airport in Barbados, followed by the final 5 hour 2 600 km hop to Havana. In all, total flying time to Cuba was approximately 26 hours.

It arrived back at AFB Waterkloof on the afternoon of Thursday July 27, having followed the same routing in reverse. It was originally scheduled to arrive on the 26th, but was delayed in Recife for 24 hours by a technical issue.

Despite the historic and unusual nature of the mission, requests sent 11 days ago to the SAAF and South African National Defence Force (SANDF) for more information on the flight and its purpose, as well as numerous follow-ups, have gone unanswered with both refusing to provide official comment.

Nor has there been any explanation of why the personal belongings of the Project Thusano personnel were substantial enough to justify the use of an Air Force C-130BZ. Out of nine C-130BZs in its inventory, the SAAF is only able to have between three and four operational at any given time as a result of severe budget shortages and austerity measures. This has led to the cancellation of some tasks and courses as there are too few aircraft to fulfill all of the SANDF’s transport demands, including regular resupply flights to South African forces with the United Nations mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Project Thusano is a controversial programme, in which 93 technicians from the Cuban armed forces, under the command of Brigadier General Borjas Ortega, were brought into the SANDF to provide technical assistance and to repair and return to service derelict vehicles belonging to the South African Army. Although nearly 2 000 trucks and other soft-skinned vehicles have been repaired, the country’s opposition party has criticised the project for being too costly, with a total budget exceeding R200 million a year.

Featured image caption: C-130BZ serial 409 of the South African Air Force. This is believed to be the exact aircraft that undertook the epic 13 000 km mission from Pretoria to Havana, Cuba. ADR/DARREN OLIVIER

UPDATE: Given the unexpected similarities between this article and that written by Erika Gibson of Netwerk24 the Sunday before ours came out, we felt it necessary to address some points.

At no point did Dean or I rely on Erika’s reporting for our story. The set of basic facts for this event rest on only two pieces of information: The routing and timing of the trip to and from Cuba, and the purpose of the flight. In the case of the routing we had access to three independent sources, including documents, confirming the routing and timing of each leg. In the case of the flight’s purpose we had two further independent sources confirming that it was to carry the ‘personal belongings’ of Project Thusano personnel.

Our article is demonstrably not a copy or ‘translation’ of hers, given that we have some additional information that she does not, including more exact timings between destinations and the serial number of the aircraft that undertook the flight. In turn, she obtained information that we could not, such as the flight’s cost, the exact nature of the personal belongings carried on board, and the annual leave status of the Project Thusano personnel.

That the timing was similar can be attributed to two things. First, we only received final confirmation of some pieces of information after the aircraft had returned to South Africa on Thursday, and as a result of other commitments Dean and I are usually only able to work together on stories over weekends. Second, even though we had information as to the flight’s real destination and route as early as the week before last, we delayed publication while waiting (in vain) for a response from the SANDF to our emailed and phoned requests for comment.

]]>https://www.africandefence.net/destination-of-mystery-air-force-hercules-flight-revealed/feed/73970Is Hamas Fighting in Libya?https://www.africandefence.net/is-hamas-fighting-in-libya/
https://www.africandefence.net/is-hamas-fighting-in-libya/#respondMon, 24 Jul 2017 10:00:18 +0000https://www.africandefence.net/?p=3950A startling claim is buried within a routine new United Nations report: That a Palestinian militant group is operating in Libya. The Panel of Experts on Libya, a United Nations working group, announced that its years-long investigation confirmed longstanding Libyan claims regarding “the presence of Palestinian military experts in Tripoli.”

The report states that although a Palestinian official interviewed by the Panel denied any activity in Libya, “he confirmed that eight members of his faction, who were members of the Palestinian diaspora in Libya, had been arrested in Tripoli in the course of 2016. The Panel is still investigating the case.”

The U.N. report is the latest piece in of evidence suggesting a Palestinian terror group is fighting in Libya, though U.N. representatives in New York declined to comment on the matter and its representatives in Libya were not available for comment. The report also concludes that efforts to prevent other foreign fighters from entering Libya has failed. It states that ISIL terrorists remain active in Libya and remain in contact with their colleagues in Syria. The report also describes an escalating role for mercenary forces in the conflict.

Open civil war has raged in Libya since disputed elections in 2014. Nominally, the Government of National Accord is Libya’s official government. However, despite recognition by the United Nations and the United States it remains militarily weak. The Libyan Civil wars involves multiple factions from local militias to coalitions which aspire to rule the country.

The General National Congress(GNC) also claims to be Libya’s legitimate government. The groub tends to be more Islamist in its outlook and is supported by Qatar and Turkey. Qatar’s support of Islamists in Libya and elsewhere in the Middle East has led a host of nations to launch a diplomatic blockade of the country which began earlier this week.

The GNC is opposed by the Libyan National Army (LNA) is headed by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar. The LNA is the nominal armed-wing of the the Tobruk based House of Representatives which also claims to be Libya’s legitimate government. The LNA has enjoyed the support of Russia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates who are concerned about the role of armed Islamist groups in Libya.

The United Nations report appears to vindicate the LNA which has repeatedly accused Hamas of fighting alongside other Islamist forces in Libya. Ahmed Al-Mismari, a spokesperson for the LNA, told the media earlier this month that Hamas was receiving support from Qatar for its military operations in Libya. Al-Mismari added that Qatar “destroyed the Arab region and that there is no hope for reconciliation.”

An LNA linked Twitter account released an alleged Qatari diplomatic document on June 7th in an effort to bolster that claim. The document dated to 2012 suggets that the Qatari armed forces were fighting in Libya. To further bolster their Hamas claim, LNA released photos on Twitter which they claim show headbands from the Hamas al-Qassam Brigade found in Benghazi. The Hamas al-Qassam is the armed wing of Hamas.

Hamas spokespeople have denied any involvement in the Libyan conflict. However, while Hamas usually avoids addressing African affairs it has commented on the situation in Libya. As recently as 2015 they warned Italy against becoming involved in a “new crusade” in Libya according to ANSA, an Italian press agency.

Grant Rumley, an expert on Palestinian politics at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy said there is clear evidence that Hamas has involved itself in regional conflicts. “Hamas has colluded with ISIL in Sinai in fighting against Egypt,” he said “Several members of Hamas’ military wing have smuggled themselves into Sinai to join up with ISIL there, while some ISIL fighters have received treatment and supplies from Hamas in Gaza.” However, Rumley expressed skepticism regarding a Hamas role in the conflict given the logistical hurtles necessary to transport fighters from Gaza to Libya Earlier this year an alleged Hamas spy was arrested in Benghazi according to Arabic-language press reports was arrested while spying on the LNA.

Experts are unsure why Palestinian factions have become embroiled in the Libyan Civil War. The country is home to a sizeable Palestinian diaspora. There are roughly 20,000 Palestinian refugees in Libya according to UNHCR. In 2015 concerns over foreign fighters prompted Libya’s internationally recognized government to ban Palestinians along with Syrians and Sudanese from entering the country.

“If there are Hamas terrorists in Libya doesn’t mean that Hamas is changing its priorities,” said Randall Stickley a researcher on Libya “the presence of such fighters could just signal that Hamas’s fighters are using the Libyan conflict as a training exercise until the next round of fighting between Gaza and Israel.”

]]>https://www.africandefence.net/is-hamas-fighting-in-libya/feed/03950Af Urur followup – some interesting detailshttps://www.africandefence.net/af-urur-followup-some-interesting-details/
https://www.africandefence.net/af-urur-followup-some-interesting-details/#respondFri, 14 Jul 2017 15:36:21 +0000https://www.africandefence.net/?p=3859In the course of researching the al-Shabaab attack on Puntland Security Forces at Af Urur on 8 June 2017, a couple of interesting little details emerged. These were not specific to the task of geolocating the town and base, which was covered in this post, but were nonetheless worth pursuing in a bit more detail in this followup post.

The first observation was drawn from the set of pictures posted on social media, showing a Puntland Security Forces aid delivery to Af Urur in March, earlier in the year. In one of the images, a man in distinct camouflage can be seen with his back to the figures opening boxes of aid. He is seemingly the owner of a suppressed weapon leaning against a chair, and appears to have notably lighter skin, visible on his exposed wrist. Western forces are known to have been acting in support of Puntland State security forces, so this is not exactly a groundbreaking discovery – but is interesting to see that Western forces were present at the site not that long before al-Shabaab conducted its attack.

The second observation is drawn from a 16 June release of imagery showing the attack by al-Kataib – the media arm of al-Shabaab. Those images were instrumental in verifying the presumed location of the PSF base and of Af Urur town itself.

Those images showed al-Shabaab fighters storming and looting the Puntland Security Force positions on the hill to the east of Af Urur. Those positions appeared to consist of little more than a few small fighting scrapes, made from piled rocks, and covered with plastic or tarpaulins. Several vehicles were interspersed among the positions which the militants subsequently captured or destroyed. The collection of images showed militants firing their weapons, apparently in combat (whether actual combat was still taking place at the time the footage was shot is debateable), and in other sequences, shooting at the bodies of PSF troops. Several images show the militants looting the PSF positions, one of which is of particular interest.

In it, a fighting position can be seen – really little more than a small stone shelter. If you look closely, you can see a few interesting details such as a mobile phone, tins probably containing water and food, a knife, and several spent cartridges. The light machine gun is the primary focus here however. While we can’t see the whole weapon, we can see a few key features for identification purposes, notably:

the folding bipod (attached to the barrel – the weapon also appears to have been mounted on a tripod but has been knocked over, two of the legs can be seen)

the muzzle cone

the front sight

the distinctly shaped stock

The weapon appears to be a Chinese-manufactured Type 67 GPMG. The stock appears to be wood, which would likely make it an original Type 67, and not one of the later revisions that used polymer stocks. The Type 67 has served as a frontline weapon for the PLA since 1967, and has remained in service even after the 1983 limited adoption of the Type 80 (PKM clone). The weapon is noteworthy for being rarely seen outside of Chinese use, and especially so in Puntland, Somalia. On first assessment, I was ready to say that this was the first time it had been seen in the country – however a recent search did turn up the below image, showing a group of Puntland Security Force personnel, posing with various Kalashnikovs, a PKM, and in the centre, another Type 67.

In 2016, Armament Research Services posted an article on just this weapon, making appearances in the Syrian conflict, and also in Yemen. It stands to reason that that would be the most likely route by which these weapons came to be in the hands of Puntland Security Forces. Its worth noting that Norinco does export the weapon, but it is not clear if any sales were made (or could legally be made) to the PSF. It is conceivable that these weapons found their way into an illicit arms shipment from Yemen, and were subsequently confiscated and pressed into service.

We can also speculate about the ultimate fate of the Type 67 seen captured at Af Urur. It uses the popular 7.62x54mm rimmed cartridge – the same Soviet-era round used by the ever present PKM. The Type 67 also has quick-change barrels – but it is unknown how many, if any, were seized along with the weapon. Assuming it has not been discarded, lost or destroyed in combat, the weapon will likely be used until it breaks down from wear and tear. Having seen how al-Shabaab machine gunner treat their weapons, it is unlikely to take much time.

]]>https://www.africandefence.net/af-urur-followup-some-interesting-details/feed/03859Why the South African Air Force’s C-47TPs were grounded and why it mattershttps://www.africandefence.net/why-the-south-african-air-forces-c-47tps-were-grounded-and-why-it-matters/
https://www.africandefence.net/why-the-south-african-air-forces-c-47tps-were-grounded-and-why-it-matters/#commentsMon, 10 Jul 2017 07:00:18 +0000https://www.africandefence.net/?p=3898Main image caption: C-47TP ‘6885’, one of five operated by 35 Squadron South African Air Force in the maritime surveillance role. Built in 1944, it’s now an incredible 73 years old. Photo by Alan Wilson

All eight of the South African Air Force 35 Squadron’s C-47TP transport and maritime surveillance aircraft were grounded for much of 2016, leaving a severe gap in the country’s coverage of its oceans.

The C-47TP, also known as the ‘TurboDak’, is the result of an upgrade of the venerable C-47 Dakota, under Project Felstone with modern PT-6A 65R turboprop engines, updated avionics and a lengthened fuselage to adjust for the change in centre of gravity brought by the lighter engines. At least twelve C-47s were converted between 1989 and 1994, with 35 Squadron being the only unit to operate them.

Although upgraded, many of the C-47TPs are over 70 years old, making them some of the oldest military aircraft in active service anywhere in the world.

Their extended grounding was related to two separate technical issues: An unspecified but reportedly minor issue with the aircraft undercarriages, and a need to replace the primary flight control cables in response to a Australian Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) airworthiness directive (AD) AD/GENERAL/87.

That directive requires the removal and destruction by 1 January 2018 of all primary flight control cables that use terminals constructed of SAE-AISI 303 Se or SAE-AISI 304 stainless steel and are either more than 15 years old, or of unknown age in aircraft built before 2003. This is as a result of widespread stress corrosion fractures discovered in aircraft control cables older than 15 years across Australia, New Zealand, the United States and the European Union in the past few years.

No less than 61 primary flight control cable corrosion discoveries and 4 outright cable separations have been recorded in Australia alone since 2012, with similar numbers seen in other countries. Most of these were discovered on the ground, usually after pilots reported unusual control feedbacks, but some in the United States caused severe or even fatal accidents.

Metallurgical analyses of failed assemblies showed that cracking could originate from within the sleeves of the terminals before becoming apparent on the outer surface, although it and other stress corrosion failures were correlated with some surface corrosion. This mean that in-place visual inspections of the assemblies alone would be insufficient in identifying stress corrosion.

Nonetheless, it’s unusual for an AD to specify the complete removal and replacement of components, as in most cases it’s sufficient to mandate that items are inspected either visually or through some other non-destructive inspection (NDI) technique like dyes or x-rays, but after conducting numerous tests CASA discovered that neither visual nor NDI techniques were sufficient to identify whether an assembly had stress corrosion. Dye-penetrant NDI was abandoned, as none of the readily-available dyes provided sufficient guarantees. Eddy current NDI was considered unreliable owing to the cable geometry and the type of corrosion. X-ray NDI was similarly constrained by the cable geometry, as well as high cost and the lack of a readily-available procedure.

The only inspection method considered suitable was the complete removal, disassembly and cleaning of each control cable assembly followed by a visual inspection at 10x magnification. CASA thus issued a notice of proposed rule-making, NPRM-1303MS, which presented for comment the option of mandating either the removal, disassembly and inspection, or the complete removal and replacement, of control cables. Responses from the public and general aviation industry indicated that as both options would result in a similar labour cost the outright replacement was the more pragmatic approach.

Even though the South African Air Force is not bound by Australian ADs in any way, it maintains its own airworthiness directorate and adopts foreign ADs that might apply to its aircraft. In the case of the C-47TPs, the aircraft’s maritime role means their components are more prone to corrosion than most and so out of an abundance of caution the organisation decided last year to adopt AD/GENERAL/87 as an internal directive.

However, it’s unclear why the process of removing and replacing the primary flight control assemblies on the South African Air Force’s C-47TPs took such a long time to complete. While the Air Force has declined to provide details, some analysts have speculated that the cause may be either a shortage of sufficiently-qualified manpower, or the bureaucracy and red tape around acquiring new assemblies, having them fitted, and signing off the work.

Whatever the cause, by February this year the process was complete and the C-47TPs returned to the sky, with aircrew conducting training flights throughout March to regain operational competency and currency. As of the time of writing, the aircraft are once more on operational patrols.

There is an almost impossible burden placed upon 35 Squadron, the Air Force’s sole maritime patrol unit. Only five of its eight C-47TPs are configured for the maritime patrol role (two are transports and one is a dedicated airborne Electronic Warfare testing and training platform) and their operating budget is so low it’s amazing they’re able to keep any aircraft flying let alone most of their fleet.

35 Squadron has a long and rich heritage of maritime patrolling, having operated Catalina and Sunderland flying boats until 1957, followed by the magnificent Shackleton MR3 until 1984 after which it received a fleet of C-47s. In December 1990, 25 Squadron and 27 Squadron were shut down and their personnel and aircraft moved into 35 Squadron, giving it a secondary transport role that it retains to this day.

In addition to the basic maritime surveillance and transport roles, 35 Squadron is required to perform a diverse set of missions such as search and rescue, paratrooping, target-towing, CASEVAC, electronic intelligence gathering, tactical photographic reconnaissance, and training for new navigators and radio operators.

With its maritime-configured C-47TPs, which fly with a crew of 10, the squadron is expected to not only patrol the South African coastline and EEZ, but also to perform anti-piracy patrols of the Mozambican Channel as part of Operation Copper.

According to an article by Dean Wingrin, these ongoing 35 Squadron patrols of the Mozambican Channel are performed via an elaborate ‘airport hopping’ mission from their home base at AFB Ysterplaat in the Western Cape. A typical sortie would begin with a flight from AFB Ysterplaat to AFB Waterkloof in Pretoria, then on to Maputo, Beira, and Pemba for patrols before returning back via the same route. On the legs between Maputo, Beira, and Pemba the aircraft will patrol inshore all the way to the Ruvuma River, spending most of its time in the area between Pemba and the Comoros before patrolling shipping lanes out to 60 nautical miles.

Previously, 35 Squadron had a C-47TP deployed permanently at Pemba in support of the Copper patrols, but the cost of sustaining a detachment there prompted the change to a new approach as the piracy threat decreased.

When one considers that the C-47TP is unpressurised, has a range of only 2 800 km and is not equipped with any advanced sensors such as 360º maritime search radars or FLIR turrets, it’s remarkable how well the squadron is able to perform its many diverse tasks day in and day out. Like so many other units in the South African Air Force, their persistence in the face of adversity is admirable.

However, it’s clear that this situation cannot last, and that 35 Squadron needs both new and more capable aircraft and significantly more funding if it is to be able to truly patrol not only the country’s EEZ and coastal areas, but also Prince Edward and Marion Islands where much illegal fishing activity takes place.

A replacement for the C-47TP has been on the cards for over a decade and has gone through at least two procurement attempts that failed to yield results. Project Saucepan, which envisioned the acquisition of a single type to replace both maritime patrol and light transports, was cancelled after languishing for many years and replaced by Projects Metsi, for a new maritime patrol aircraft to replace the C-47TPs in the maritime role, and Kiepie, to replace the transport-configured C-47TPs and the C-212s. But both of these projects remain unfunded and have been for years, with no immediate sign of movement in the near future as a result of the overall SANDF budget crunch.

An interesting proposal from a South African consortium led by Atlantis Aviation, to provide Dornier Do-328s fresh from a search and rescue contract with the Australian government, was presented to the Department of Defence last year but turned down for unspecified reasons.

Although last year’s grounding of the C-47TPs was not specifically related to their age, it’s a timely warning for anyone watching that the resources allocated to airborne maritime surveillance of South Africa’s waters is wholly inadequate and that the C-47TPs are old and will only experience more component issues as time goes on.

Note: This article appeared in the May 2017 issue of FlightCom magazine. It is republished here with that publication’s permission.

]]>https://www.africandefence.net/why-the-south-african-air-forces-c-47tps-were-grounded-and-why-it-matters/feed/53898The Strange Tale of the Georgians in the DRChttps://www.africandefence.net/the-strange-tale-of-the-georgians-in-the-drc/
https://www.africandefence.net/the-strange-tale-of-the-georgians-in-the-drc/#respondSun, 09 Jul 2017 15:20:48 +0000https://www.africandefence.net/?p=3890[This is is an edited version of the article that first appeared at Bellingcat, and is reproduced here with the author’s permission.]

Around January 30, 2017, news started circulating on both African and Eastern European media that an Mi-24 combat helicopter belonging to the FAC, the airforce component of the DRC’s armed forces, had crashed on January 27 in Rutshuru, North Kivu, near the borders with Rwanda and Uganda. It was said that the Mi-24 was hit by M23 fighters, which is known as being active in the area. Shortly after, reports came in that a second helicopter had also been downed by gunfire.

The first report on the Mi-24 crash in Rutshuru, published on Facebook by the Georgian military magazine “Arsenal”.

The peculiarity of the incident is in the helicopter crews of both Mi-24s. One crew reportedly consisted of two Georgian pilots, one of whom was either held prisoner by the M23 attackers or transferred to a linked group; while the other crew consisted of two Belarusian men. Both crews were reportedly in DRC on “private contracts”, but it remained unclear why they were piloting — or at least on board — FAC combat helicopters in an active conflict area.

The Helicopter

Photos of one of the two crashed helicopters started circulating on the web by January 30. They show the remnants of what appears to be a Mi-24 combat helicopter displaying part of its registration number:

One of the first photos released of the crashed helicopter, surrounded by unidentified fighters (source).

The Congolese newspaper Politico.cdpublished a few photos a day later on January 31. Interestingly, the date impressed by the device — likely to be a compact digital camera — on two of the pictures is in Cyrillic script, and reads “27 Jan 2017”. Additionally, we find that the complete registration number for the helicopter is: 9T-HM 12.

Images published on Politico.cd showing a date stamp in cyrillic characters, plus the full registration number (9T-HM 12) and the tail section of one helicopter with the FAC roundel visible.

While it’s difficult to obtain absolute certainty that the helicopter in all pictures is the same one, because of the lack of points of reference in the forested area, several details seem to confirm it:

A severed log is visible in two pictures right behind the helicopter’s cabin in three different shots, two of which from different angles;

The damage inflicted to the vehicle’s tail appears to match in all photos where it’s visible;

A second severed log is visible in at least two pictures while resting over the right wing of the helicopter;

The pattern of damage to the helicopter’s blade also seems to match in all photos, with a short blade’s stump pointing loosely towards the back of the aircraft, and longer ones towards the other sides.

Composite of 3 photos of the crash scene from different angles. Contrast and brightness were adjusted for better clarity.

Composite of two images of the crashed helicopter. The log over the right wing, the broken blade pattern, and the open cabin door are visible.

The registration number of the helicopter is, naturally, a crucial piece of information. A 2011 document purporting to reproduce a list of all aircrafts registered in the DRC explains that, for immatriculation, the DRC military aircrafts use the formula 9T-xxx, “in arbitrary manner”.

Within the same document, we find a list of helicopters registered with those parameters, including an HM12:

According to the document, registration number HM12 of the downed aircraft, as well as all other helicopters registered sequentially from HM1 to HM15 (with the exception of 13 and 14), had originally been registered in 1998 by the FAC at a base marked with the ICAO code “FZAA” — which corresponds to the N’Djili International Airport in Kinshasa, the capital of DRC.

It is important to note that the list specifies the model of the helicopters to be Mi-35 — a noticeably different aircraft from the one(s) involved in the incident.

However, a list published in October 2007 by the Dutch aviation magazine Scramble appears to show that on July 19, 2007, two Mi-24V helicopters with registration number 9T-HM11 and, more importantly, 9T-HM12 were registered, again by the FAC (here named “DR Congo Air Force”), as based at an airport with IATA code GOM — a.k.a. Goma International Airport:

Goma is the capital of the North Kivu province, located approximately 75 kilometers south of Rutshuru, where the crash reportedly happened. It hosts an international airport that, despite having been substantially damaged by a volcano eruption in 2002, is still operative to this day. It is important that we are able to track the helicopter in question to this location, as will be discussed later.

The 2007 registration could have been a reuse of registration numbers made available when the previously assigned aircrafts were rendered inoperable, or retired from service. The “new” HM12 can be seen, while still operational, in an undated and not geolocated picture posted in early 2016 by a user of Nairaland, a Nigerian-based online forum board:

On the same page, another apparent DRC helicopter, a Mi-8 registered as 9T-HM8, can be seen in photo on a previous posting.

It seems clear, from the available evidence, that 9T-HM12, a Mi-24 combat helicopter of Russian (post-Soviet) manufacturing, can be tracked as registered by the FAC since at least 2007. Furthermore, it appears possible that the helicopter was deployed at the Goma International Airport, before eventually crashing approximately 75 KMs away from that base on January 27, 2017.

The Pilots

After several rumors about “Russian pilots” being involved in the two helicopter crashes, the Georgian Ministry of Defense (MoD) admitted that two Georgian citizens were involved as crew of one of the two aircraft. First, on February 22, the retired Colonel of the Georgian Army David Makishvili published an appeal on his Facebook page to help “the Colonel and military pilot” Soso Osorauli being released from captivity:

Screenshot from the Feb 22 Facebook post by David Makishvili.

Then, on February 23, RIA Novosti published a report from the Georgian MoD confirming that one of the pilots had been taken captive, and naming him as “Сосо Осиураули” (Soso Osiurauli, though the surname will be later corrected in Georgian articles as “Osorauli”); also stating that a second pilot, still unnamed, was being treated in an hospital in Goma.

Finally, on February 27, the Georgian website Freedom And Democracy Watchreported that the second pilot had been named by the Georgian MoD as Vyacheslav Pluzhnikov. The article even included a picture of two caucasian men that could be both Pluzhnikov and Osorauli, among a group of possible children from the DRC, and two other men whose faces had been blurred:

The article also stated that:

“Pluzhnikov was arrested in 2010 in a case known as the Enver Affair, after an alleged Russian intelligence agent code named ‘Enver’. 15 people were arrested in the swoop, mainly air force officers. Those who pleaded guilty were soon released, but those who pleaded not guilty were sentenced to prison terms of various lengths. Pluzhnikov was among those who insisted on his innocence and he was sentenced for 13 years and 6 months. After the change of power in 2012, his case, which had previously caused much controversy, was reviewed. The following year, he was released in a mass amnesty following a prisoner abuse scandal.”

Finally, after a few months of silence, Georgian TV broadcast a video (archived version) allegedly recorded by Osorauli’s kidnappers, and showing the pilot alive and in captivity, though shaken and possibly injured. The video is undated, and was rumored to have been produced to support a demand for a one million (US?) dollar ransom for the prisoner. Another undated image began circulating around the same time, which appears to show Osorauli with his possible kidnappers. The pilot seems to be wearing the same olive green uniform, and is covered with a blanket over his head:

None of the images acquired returned EXIF data useful to geolocating the captives, and nothing in the surroundings revealed more about the possible area where the images may have been taken.

Identities

Disclaimer: due to several of the identified actors not having been publicly named yet, and the fact that they are most likely still located in an active conflict area, we will obfuscate their identities in the following part of the research. An exception will be made for Osorauli and Pluzhnikov, whose names and pictures have already been widely distributed by the press and through social media.

Soso Osorauli

Initial open source research on Soso Osorauli reveals possible links to the 2008 Russian-Georgian War, which would not be unusual for a military helicopter pilot on active duty. In addition to comments on him made by retired Col. Makishvili, a 2014 article by a website called For.ge seems to associate a “Soso Osorauli”, a “Krokodili or Mi-24 pilot”, to the infamous 2007 Georgia helicopter incident that preceded the 2008 war. As the incident was widely attributed to the Russian military, it is possible that the article responded to a specific political agenda; nevertheless, it’s the earliest possible reference to Osorauli that we could track in public news.

Examining social media platforms leads to the discovery of a profile of interest on ok.ru, also known as Odnoklassniki, a social networking site particularly popular in the former Soviet countries, including Georgia.

The profile in question is named using a reference to the name “Soso”, and displays the profile picture of a man apparently piloting an aircraft. The man’s appearance, and the claim on his profile to be 41 years old and located in Goma, DRC, seems to fit the description of one of the two individuals shown by the media in relation to the helicopter crash. According to the timestamp associated with the profile, his last login into ok.ru was on January 27, 2017 — the day the incident happened.

Header of the located profile on ok.ru, with text translated from Georgian through Google Translate. Note the user-generated information on his location (Goma), and the automated timestamp applied by ok.ru to the last login (Jan 27).

Composite of the profile picture for the located ok.ru profile, and a photo of the possible Soso Osorauli distributed by dfwatch.net. Unfortunately, the resolution of the profile picture is too low to distinguish characters on the name tag.

The OK profile contains a trove of images that shed light on its owner. The first photo was posted on the account on May 13, 2015, possibly already from DRC, but more conclusively, several images link what now clearly seems to be Soso Osorauli to FAC helicopters like the one that crashed.

For example, in one photo posted on 28 December 2015, Soso is shown in front of a Mil Mi-8 helicopter with registration 9T-HM 5 – confirming registration within DRC:

Osorauli shown in front of a FARDC Mil Mi-8 helicopter registered as 9T-HM5. Note that the picture displays the December 28, 2015 date in Cyrillic script with identical format as some of the ones from the crash scene.

Another photo, also published by Georgian media in relation to the captive pilot, shows him in front of a Mil Mi-17 helicopter bearing the roundlet of the Georgian Air Force. While undated, it seems likely that it was taken before his relocation to DRC:

Mr. Osorauli can be geolocated in Goma in several of the photos posted on the ok.ru profile. For example, in an image posted on July 14, 2015, he’s shown in front of a known landmark of central Goma, the so-called “Chiduku monument”, celebrating one of the typical means of transportation for supplies in the region:

Another picture, posted on the same day and most likely taken in the same occasion, sees Osorauli standing in front of the Institut De Goma, a local university:

Overall, we can assess with moderate confidence that Soso Osorauli was located in Goma, North Kivu, since at least May 2015. At the time of this writing, we could not locate other social media accounts associated with him.

Vyacheslav Pluzhnikov

The second pilot named as involved in the crash – apparently only injured and found recovering in a hospital in Goma – was Vyacheslav Pluzhnikov. Researching connections for Osorauli’s probable ok.ru account, we quickly located a profile named after a variation of Pluzhnikov’s full name.

His profile picture shows an individual strongly resembling the second man shown in the picture of the pilots as distributed by the press:

Composite of the profile picture for the ok.ru account possibly associated with Pluzhnikov (left), and the photo of the second pilot as distributed by the press (right).

Among his numerous posted photos, we can find several ones that depict the individual previously identified as Soso Osorauli:

Picture from Pluzhnikov’s ok.ru profile showing him (left) together with Soso Osorauli, and three unidentified individuals.

More importantly, one photo posted on July 24, 2015, depicts him and three more unidentified individuals in front of the Mi-24 helicopter registered as 9T-HM 12 — the one crashed in the North Kivu jungle. This is a key piece of information, placing Pluzhnikov, at the very least, in the same facilities where operations with such helicopters were run from.

Photo from Pluzhnikov’s ok.ru profile, showing him and three unidentified men in front of the 9T-HM12 Mi-24 helicopter from DRC

Crossing from ok.ru to Facebook, we are able to locate a profile named after another close permutation of his name. On it, together with the picture shown above, we can find Pluzhnikov posing next to Mr. Osorauli (plus two of the other unidentified men, and a couple of new individuals) in front of what is possibly the same helicopter. The picture was posted on Facebook on July 19, 2015.

Photo from Pluzhnikov’s Facebook profile, showing him, Soso Osorauli, and four unidentified men (plus one crouching) in front of a Mi-24 helicopter. Note that Pluzhnikov and two of the other men wear the same clothes as in the previous photo, possibly indicating that it was taken on the same occasion.

Those two pictures appear to be the first ones, in time succession, where Pluzhnikov can be located with good confidence in DRC – although a few ones from the Facebook profile, posted in June, could also have been taken in Goma or even Kinshasa.

Overall, we can place the two pilots in the DRC (most likely Goma) since May (Osorauli) and July (Pluzhnikov) 2015; we can link them to the crashed helicopter; and we have discovered the presence of what may potentially be additional pilots from the same team.

The Team

“The Trainer”

One individual that recurrently appears in photos apparently taken within DRC with either or both Osorauli and Pluzhnikov is a man claiming to be 60 years of age and from Tbilisi, with a name that appears very likely to be Georgian. We will call him “the Trainer”, owing to the reconstruction of his possible role within the PMC team.

The Trainer can be seen on several photos posted on Osorauli’s ok.ru profile together with the pilot:

Picture posted on 8 June 2015, and depicting the Trainer next to Soso Osorauli in what is likely to be a DRC location

The Trainer can be traced in Congo much earlier than Osorauli and Pluzhnikov. The earliest photo posted on his social media presences in which he claims to be in the DRC was posted in January 2014, and shows him in a helicopter cabin, next to what apears to be an FAC pilot:

Photo posted on the Trainer’s ok.ru profile on January 31, 2014, claimed to be taken in DRC, and showing him (left) next to a uniformed man sporting a DRC flag on his shoulder.

The Trainer consistently appears in association with a different Mi-24 helicopter than the one seen crashed – one that’s registered as 9T-HM5, which we had observed earlier in this report. Multiple pictures show him in front of it:

Photo of the Trainer (red circle) next to Soso Osorauli and in front of the 9T-HM5 helicopter

The role of this individual as a trainer is suggested by the content of his pictures on both ok.ru and a Facebook profile with his same name — most of which contain different people in pilot’s uniforms and often showing a DRC flag. Additionally, one comment left in French by a contact on his Facebook profile in January 2016 clearly mentions an “M7 training flight”, congratulating the Trainer on it:

Finally, and most importantly, the Trainer appears to receive institutional support from the FARDC/FAC. A picture posted on his Facebook profile in March 2016 shows him on board a minivan, flanked by a uniformed man who appears to be a Sergeant Major of the FAC, judging from his insignia, which includes collar pins. The minivan sports both the Georgian and DRC flags, in what could have been a formal welcoming to the Trainer and/or his team.

2016 photo of the Trainer with a FAC official, and the Georgian and DRC flags on his minivan

Other Pilots And Trainers

A small group of other individuals recurrently appear in photos as associated with Osorauli, Pluzhnikov, and/or the Trainer. Their uniforms, poses, and the locations of the pictures suggest that they may also be either pilots, or – on at least one occasion – trainers. For all those whose social media presence could be determined, their names and posted content link back to Georgia.

A few photos include:

Undated picture showing the Trainer (red) and another probable Georgian trainer (yellow) in his 60s, together with a few DRC pilots or officials

Another photo showing the Trainer, the possible colleague, and a group of probable local pilots or crews in DRC.

In total, another three people were determined as consistently or sporadically appearing in photos within DRC with either Osorauli, Pluzhnikov, or the Trainer. Given their apparent younger age, they could be pilots, or junior trainers.

Why Were They There?

On February 1, 2017, the commander for the Third Military Region of the FARDC, General Leon Mushalé, conducted a press conference about the helicopters’ crash in which he declared that “the [helicopters’] manufacturer provided the services of ‘a trainer’”, without specifying his or her nationality.

The manufacturer of the Mil Mi-24 helicopters is the Mil Moscow Helicopter Plant, owned by the parent company Russian Helicopters. While an entire ecosystem of job offers for Mi-24 pilots, both in Russia and abroad, exists on web forums such as Aviaforum.ru and similar ones, we could not locate job postings that could match the deployment of any of the identified individuals.

Attempts to obtain clues of the pilots or trainers affiliation via their uniform or insignia were also unsuccessful. Both Mr. Osorauli and the Trainer, for example, are often seen in photos wearing a badge with a blue lanyard. Unfortunately, the resolution of those pictures is too low to read the information contained in the badge.

Composite of a photo of the Trainer and a previously seen one with Osorauli, both wearing a similar white badge with blue lanyard.

It is worth noting, however, that several photos showing members of the MONUSCO peacekeeping mission at the Goma International Airport show them wearing a different type of badge. This appears to confirm that there was no affiliation between the Georgian pilots and MONUSCO.

A MONUSCO mission member wearing her badge while at Goma International Airport in a photo posted in 2015. The badge is visibly different from that worn by the Georgian pilots.

While we can confidently rule out that the Georgians were in any way linked to the UN mission, two alternative options remain open:

That the Georgians were employed by Russian Helicopters or one of its subsidiaries to provide training to FARDC pilots in Goma;

That they were contracted by one of the many private military companies active in DRC, in which case their role could have extended beyond the delivery of training, and included active combat support.

At this time, and with the available gathered evidence, neither of the options can be confirmed or dismissed.

It is not possible to locate a “smoking gun” – a definitive proof of why and in what capacity former military pilots from Georgia would be aboard FARDC combat helicopters in North Kivu, together with FARDC members, during a mission over an active conflict area. However, observing the timeline of the located open source content, as well as the general security, political, and extractive environment in the area over the past few years, it seems reasonable to believe that Georgian experts were hired to train FARDC pilots in counterinsurgency operations.

Equally, it is not possible to conclusively state that such pilots were involved in combat operations when the incident happened, or at any other point in time while in DRC. However, it is suspicious that at least one Georgian pilot with extensive combat expertise, Soso Osorauli, was piloting (or aboard) one of such helicopters during a combat mission.

No evidence of affiliation with the MONUSCO operations under UNSC resolution 2098 could be located, despite the pilots clearly operating from the same facilities – most notably, Goma International Airport.

North Kivu remains an area of endemic instability due to multiple factors, many of which are linked to the richness of the extractive industry in the area. It’s not surprising that capabilities of a very lacking national armed force might be supplemented through the use of international security and military experts available on the private contractors market. An entry on the DRC Air Force on Wikipedia, even states, without linking to any sources, that “foreign private military companies have reportedly been contracted to provide the DRC’s aerial reconnaissance capability using small propeller aircraft fitted with sophisticated equipment.”.

That such a partnership or direct hiring — involving private military contractors utilizing government assets such as FARDC combat helicopters in offensive operations – might exist has so far been unreported. In particular, the presence of third parties flying combat missions in FAC helicopters point to investigative work still remaining to be done.

Notably, recent attacks in the region have been attributed to an IS-affiliated group, rather than the core al-Shabaab group, which has pledged its allegiance to al-Qaeda. It can be speculated that this attack might have been partly inspired by a desire to stamp al-Shabaab’s authority on the region, as the group has violently opposed any expansion of IS-affiliates in the country.

Some local sources claimed that 150 to 200 al-Shabab militants were involved in the attack on the camp. Puntland State Officials have suggested that the base defenders might have been betrayed by a group 30-40 defectors and clan militia members who had been integrated into the base defences. It is possible that al-Shabaab will publish imagery from the attack in the future, as it has done in other prominent attacks.

A notable feature of early reports on the attack is the level of vagueness about where exactly Af Urur is. Initial reports referenced the town as being, variously, on the outskirts of Bosaso, or at distances of 40, 60, 70 and 100km to the south or west of Bosaso.

After a bit of digging around online – and then some geolocation – I believe that Af Arur is actually here:

(Af Urur, ~56km south-west of Bosaso)

(Af Urur town, dated March 2017)

Verification methodology

The obvious starting point for this investigation was to have a local source point the town out on a map. Funnily enough, even local sources didn’t appear to be sure. Turning to the Internet, several potential locations were listed on mapping services, although the town itself did not appear on any Google Maps or Bing Maps searches. GlobalMaps, a mapping aggregator, did however show Af Urur at one promising location. It was then necessary to verify that location.

Luckily, the Puntland State security forces’ Twitter account had posted some images, showing aid deliveries to the town in March 2017 (note the prominent green roof building). This was a starting point.

The Raadreeb online news service ran a story in October 2016 about local government, focused on Af Urur. The article featured several images of the town, including the same green roofed building seen in the Puntland Security Forces tweet. It is now possible to see that the building is in a walled compound. Image 2 shows some low hills behind the compound. Image three shows a radio tower to the side of the compound. Image 4 shows the town in the foreground, with the compound, green roofed building, hills, and radio tower in the background.

Turning to Terraserver for the most recent (March 2017) satellite imagery of the site shows the same combination of green roofed building (in a walled compound) with hills to the east, and a radio mast to the south east:

These reference points appear to suggest that this is indeed Af Urur town, the location of the 8 June attack. Absent from the imagery are any likely military bases or installations within the town.

Comparing old satellite imagery of the site suggests little has changed in terms of the town itself over the past decade. However, new dirt roads appeared on the hills to the east of the radio tower during the course of 2015, and a semblance of a perimeter and small structure appeared in 2016. This might plausibly be the location of a military outpost of some description. It should however be noted that in March 2015, humanitarian aid agencies noted several hundred people had fled into the area, including Af Urur town, to escape al-Shabaab activities. The buildup on the hill could be related to those IDPs.

[Update 21 June] On around the 16th of June, al-Kataib – the media arm of al-Shabaab, released imagery showing the attack. In the stills below, small orange tarpaulin-covered scrapes can be seen – which appear to be a close match to the orange structure seen in the satellite imagery of the hilltop. In the second image below, which shows two militants carrying off an interesting looking machine gun (the subject of an upcoming post), a small settlement can be seen in the background, along with a radio tower partially obscured by the downward slope of the ridge. This is not a 100% verification, but it does appear close enough to confidently suggest a match with the Af Urur candidate location.

An al-Shabaab militant raises a flag while looting the outpost

Militants carrying away weapons seized from the outpost. Note the radio tower on the left, the partially obscured buildings just over the ridge, and a small cluster of buildings in the distance. It is also worth noting the shadows in the foreground. This was a morning attack, which means the camera is pointing roughly west.

The likely approximate position and direction of the camera for the previous image.

]]>https://www.africandefence.net/al-shabaab-attacks-af-urur-in-puntland/feed/03794The Unique Gravity Fuelling Feature on South African Gripenshttps://www.africandefence.net/the-unique-fuelling-feature-on-saaf-gripens/
https://www.africandefence.net/the-unique-fuelling-feature-on-saaf-gripens/#respondTue, 16 May 2017 16:56:39 +0000https://www.africandefence.net/?p=3686The South African Air Force (SAAF) refuses to officially acknowledge it, but the Gripens it operates are equipped with a unique gravity refuelling capability that allows them to operate from airfields that lack fuel trucks or fuel pumps and to even be refuelled from drums if necessary.

Its presence can be verified by a visual examination of the SAAF’s aircraft. There are three discrete circles placed flush along the upper right fuselage, between the canards and the tail. A closer look reveals a small four-pointed star symbol, and the wording ‘NATO Code No. F-34’, alongside each. The star is the NATO-standard symbol for a refuelling port, while ‘F-34’ is an instruction that the aircraft uses JP-8, the military equivalent of Jet A-1 aviation fuel.

The circles are the caps of the gravity refuelling ports, each connected directly into one of the Gripen’s three main fuselage tanks, Tank 1, Tank 2 and Tank 3 respectively, as a backup to the aircraft’s standard pressurised refuelling port.

In this contrast-enhanced photograph the three gravity refuelling ports, each marked with a four pointed star, are clearly visible. (ADR/Darren Olivier)

None of the other Gripens in service around the world have those ports, all feature smooth metal in the same locations. This is true not only for the Swedish-spec Gripens operated by Sweden, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, but also the export-spec models operated by Thailand.

A close-up view of one of the gravity refuelling ports. Although the ‘F-34’ code indicates JP-8 fuel, the Gripen can operate equally well on the similar Jet A-1 commercial fuel. (ADR/Darren Olivier)

The regular Gripen refuelling port, near the right-hand air intake, is a standard receptacle that requires a pressurised feed to function, so either a fuel truck or a ground fuel pump must be present. This means that SAAF Gripens have the unique ability to be refuelled at any location that lacks a pressure fuelling system, or even to be refuelled from fuel drums if necessary, allowing them to operate either from austere locations or completely independently of airport resources.

The specific reason for including this requirement in the Project Ukhozi specification, under which the Gripens were acquired, has not been made public and the SAAF is not willing to elaborate. However, an examination of SAAF doctrine and tactics implies that the original intention may have been to allow for dispersed operation into either deep rural areas, or semi-prepared airstrips close to the front line, if the country was to go to war.

In practice though it’s rare for any fighter aircraft to deploy to a location that does not have a pressure fuelling system, as nearly all airports have fuel trucks or ground pumps with that capability and the SAAF’s Gripens are in any case always deployed alongside a small technical team, equipped with a Sprinter van and custom-designed trailer from Desert Wolf, that includes all the necessary ground support equipment. In fact, despite the SAAF having deployed its Gripens to airfields and airports all over the country over the years, including a rapid combat deployment to Ndola, Zambia and Kinshasa, DRC in 2013, it has not yet had any need to use the gravity refuelling system.

The main reason for this is that gravity refuelling has two major disadvantages over the standard pressure refuelling approach: It is a much slower process and it can’t be performed while the aircraft is running and the fuel system pressurised.

With the regular single-point pressure refuelling system and a suitable fuel pump, the Gripen can have all of its internal tanks and three drop tanks refilled within an impressive ten minutes, at a rate of around 600+ litres per minute. The onboard systems automatically handle the rerouting of the fuel into each tank in turn. Gravity refuelling, on the hand, is limited by the rate that fuel can be moved from its source without being boosted. If using drums and regularly-sized flexible hoses, filling up the three main centre tanks alone might take over an hour.

It’s also unclear whether the Gripen’s systems support refilling the wing tanks and drop tanks from gravity refuelling, as it would likely require the transfer pump next to the Forward Refuelling Transfer Unit to be used and the system would be unpressurised.

To understand why these limitations exist, it’s important to first describe in brief how the Gripen fuel system works.

The location of the main fuel tanks on the Gripen C. The VT and NGT are not shown.

The Gripen C has 11 fuel tanks: Tank 2 Fore (not present in the Gripen D), Tank 2 Aft, Tank 1 Fore, Tank 1 Aft, Tank 3, the Vent Tank, and the Negative G Tank all exist in the fuselage, while each wing has two tanks, Tank 4 and Tank 5. The included diagram shows the relative locations of the tanks, though for the sake of illustration it ignores the Vent Tank and Negative G Tank.

Fighter aircraft fuel systems are highly-complex and designed with multiple failsafes because they have to reliably feed a huge volume of fuel to jet engines in any possible stage of flight, whether the aircraft is flying straight and level, pulling up to +9 g or -3 g, or inverted. The Gripen system uses a combination of a collector tank, boost and jet pumps, and pressurisation to solve the problem.

The collector tank consists of Tank 1 A, Tank 1 F, and the Negative G Tank below both acting in concert and is the only one from which fuel is taken for the engine. A high-power boost pump sits inside the Negative G Tank, which in turn communicates with Tank 1 A/F via a one-way feed. When the aircraft is straight and level or under positive g, the Negative G Tank effectively forms the bottom of Tank 1 A/F so it’s as though the pump is pulling from Tank 1 A/F. When the aircraft is flying inverted or under negative g conditions, the one-way feed of the Negative G Tank ensures that fuel is kept inside it even as the surrounding fuel in Tank 1 A/F is pushed away. However, as the Negative G Tank only stores a limited quantity of fuel, this limits how long the aircraft can fly inverted or while under negative g.

As Tank 1 A/F and the Negative G Tank are the only ones that the engine draws fuel from, the fuel system keeps them topped up by transferring fuel from the other tanks. This is done via the Forward Refuelling Transfer Unit and Aft Refuelling Transfer Unit, a series of small jet pumps, and the main transfer pump, along with the assistance provided by pressurising the other tanks.

The order in which the tanks are transferred into Tank 1 A/F is the following: Drop tanks first (left and right together, then centre), then the combined Tank 2 A/F tank down to 200 kg, then the wing tanks, and finally Tank 3 and the remainder of Tank 2 A/F. As mentioned earlier, Tank 2 F does not exist on the two-seater Gripen D, as the space is taken up by the second seat, but the same process applies. When under high g loads and certain flight angles, the order changes, and the drop tanks are not emptied until the aircraft returns to normal flight.

For the fuel tank pressurisation system a powerful compressor and an intricate web of piping takes bleed air from the engine or APU, runs it past a heat exchanger to cool it down, and pumps it into the fuel tanks. The system is capable of pressurising the tanks to a high enough level that they can self-feed into the transfer pipes, providing a backup in case the jet pumps or transfer pump fail. In normal operations all tanks except for Tank 1 A/F and the Negative G Tank are pressurised, in order to help with fuel transfer, but the onboard computer can adjust the levels as needed to cope with different g loads. Importantly, the aircraft is capable of pressurising tanks during refuelling, helping to speed up the transfer from the refuelling port into the various tanks.

Given all this complexity, designing and testing a fuel system on a fighter aircraft like the Gripen is an expensive, long, and painstaking process. It’s therefore notable that Saab was willing to comply with the SAAF’s requirement to add gravity refuelling as an option, even though it’s a niche capability.

What’s more, the gravity refuelling system on the SAAF Gripens is just one of the more than a dozen changes and modifications that distinguish South Africa’s fleet from that of other Gripen operators. These include South African components such as the ACR500 radio (equipped with the Link-ZA datalink), the GUS-1000 audio management system, and a custom identification friend or foe (IFF) transponder, as well as broad changes to the navigation system, avionics symbology, mission planning tools, and a customised electronic warfare system which appears to have additional support from the on-board fluid cooling circuit. As the accompanying diagram shows, this circuit cools the radar, the avionics bay behind the cockpit, and the electronic warfare jammer installed in the Fin Pod Unit at the top of the tail fin.

A simplified diagram of the cooling circuit in the Gripen, which uses fuel and ram air to cool an polyalphaolefin fluid called Kylvätska 039 via heat exchangers.

All these changes are possible as a result of the South African Air Force both joining the Gripen programme while the final details of what was then called the Export Baseline Standard were being defined and having a very clear idea via its comprehensive User Requirement Specification of what capabilities it wanted its new fighter to have. This is an important factor, because it’s doubtful that similar alterations would’ve been accommodated in an in-production aircraft for an order as small as the SAAF’s. It’s to be hoped that the SAAF and SANDF might before long become less reticent about the unique systems on board their Gripens and, within reason, inform the South African public the impact that they have.

Because despite the limitations of the gravity refuelling option, it gives South African military commanders one more useful tool on the battlefield which may one day make the difference between a mission succeeding or failing.

Note: ADR reached out to the South African National Defence Force for comment and information regarding this and other modifications to the local spec Gripen, but they responded that all such details are classified. Notwithstanding the right of media outlets to publish classified information when in the public interest, care has been taken with this article to include only open source information.

ADR will also be publishing an in-depth look at the Gripen’s on-board fuel, air, and cooling systems in a future article.

Featured image: A Gripen C of the South African Air Force gets airborne in a darkening sky. ADR/Darren Olivier

]]>https://www.africandefence.net/the-unique-fuelling-feature-on-saaf-gripens/feed/03686Rethinking South African Arms Sales to the Persian Gulfhttps://www.africandefence.net/rethinking-south-african-arms-sales-to-the-persian-gulf/
https://www.africandefence.net/rethinking-south-african-arms-sales-to-the-persian-gulf/#respondWed, 05 Apr 2017 13:04:13 +0000https://www.africandefence.net/?p=3670With the recent announcement that South Africa intends to sell Iran weaponry worth R1.5 billion, including the Umkhonto surface-to-air missile, the country may contend that it is time to change its foreign military sales policy towards the Persian Gulf region.

A Long Term Relationship

South Africa has long-standing military and economic ties to Iran, dating back to when the last Shah of Iran was in power, during which the relationship reached its zenith in the 1970s, when Iran supplied upwards of 90 percent of South Africa’s crude oil imports. In the same decade, Iran signed a $700 million contract to purchase yellowcake uranium from South Africa, bought a 17.5 percent stake in the Natref refinery and refitted at least two destroyers in Cape Town’s port. Following the Iranian revolution in 1979, however, relations cooled as Ayatollah Khomeini’s regime refused to supply the apartheid government with oil, provoking an energy crisis in South Africa that lasted into the early 1980s. Relations picked up again beginning in 2000, as Iran regained its status as one of South Africa’s largest trading partners, with bilateral trade surpassing $20 billion by 2012.

The tables turned once more when UN-mandated sanctions imposed on Iran in the wake of its nuclear program resulted in the country’s inability to export oil, forcing South Africa to turn to Saudi Arabia to fulfill its oil needs. During this period, South African arms sales to member nations of the Gulf Co-Operation Council (hereafter the GCC, composed of Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Oman) increased dramatically. Among the more notable deals were the sales of several hundred infantry mobile vehicles to the United Arab Emirates and several dozen armored personnel carriers to Saudi Arabia. Even more striking was the decision by Denel Dynamics, a subsidiary of South Africa’s state-owned armaments company, to enter into a joint venture with a state-owned United Arab Emirates’ company (Tawazun Dynamics) for the production of precision guided munitions, a venture that injected much-needed cash into research and development for the South African company.

Unfortunately for GCC countries who perceive Iran as a regional threat, evidence suggests that South Africa has already taken steps, whether inadvertent or not, to position the country as its representative in the Persian Gulf. For instance, South Africa’s International Relations and Cooperation Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane condemned UN sanctions, calling them “unfairly and unjustly imposed to single out the Islamic Republic of Iran.”. Equally, it should not be forgotten that South Africa was one of the only nations to actively oppose sanctions on Iran in the Security Council in 2012, and its relations with Israel have been deteriorating during the presidency of Jacob Zuma. South Africa has also abstained from voting on certain United Nations Security Council resolutions on the civil war in Syria, possibly out of fear of compromising Iran’s position towards the Syrian regime.

South Africa’s posturing in the region did not go unnoticed when, as soon as major sanctions were lifted in January of 2016, Iran expressed its willingness to export 100,000 barrels of oil per day to South Africa, approximately 20 percent of its former total consumption. In an attempt to regain its foothold on the southern continent, Iran has made similar offers to other African nations. South African companies have also been offered reciprocal opportunities in Iran, including the development of mobile networks and participation in the country’s petrochemical industry.

Difficult Decisions

As a result of the most recent sale of its weaponry to Iran, the time is approaching for South Africa to make a difficult choice. Despite a good track record of sales to GCC nations, it now appears likely that South Africa will be unable to secure large sales to the Arab monarchies who, in turn, will not appreciate further arms sales to Iran. In the coming months or years a drop in foreign military sales to GCC nations is likely to be accompanied by a downscaling of joint ventures amongst this group.

However, does the decision to sell weaponry to Iran end all South African sales to the Persian Gulf region? In examining historical precedent, one finds that South African military sales to the GCC are a relatively new phenomenon, whereas military ties with Iran go back far longer. The GCC generally purchase their largest and most sophisticated orders from Western nations who are in a better position to make sales in the region. The United States and the United Kingdom both enjoy a significant military presence in the area, while France and Italy have longstanding military and economic ties to North African countries. China and Russia have long sold arms to a host of nations who are not as friendly to Western powers, such as Iran, Pakistan and Syria. Furthermore, GCC nations generally seek deals that will include training and maintenance of the acquired weapon systems, a service that generally does not accompany South African weapons to their destination.

As a result, South Africa’s tilt to sell weaponry to Iran is perhaps prudent. Since Iran remains relatively isolated from Western powers, and China and Russia may not sell it conventional weaponry until 2020, South Africa enjoys a unique position. Moreover, Iran already has a robust domestic armaments industry, meaning it will be unlikely that South Africa will have to sink further valuable resources, such as technicians and researchers, into integrating or sustaining Iran’s military infrastructure. As a result, this deal allows South Africa to expend its limited resources pursuing arms sales to other Iranian allies in the region, namely Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. Many of these states are eager to upgrade their ageing forces.

There are, of course, repercussions for this change in posture. Should Iran restart its nuclear program or Iraq be caught up in another civil war, both could be unable to export oil. Would the GCC nations be as generous in extending a lifeline of oil exports to South Africa again? Moreover, the move to arm Iran, who is still, in the eyes of many, a part of the so-called “Axis of Evil”, will draw criticism within and beyond South Africa’s borders. Nonetheless, if South Africa’s strategy of realpolitik plays off it could yet develop a significant export market, albeit one restricted to the other side of the Persian Gulf.

]]>https://www.africandefence.net/rethinking-south-african-arms-sales-to-the-persian-gulf/feed/03670The Kulbiyow attack uncoveredhttps://www.africandefence.net/analysis-of-competing-claims-about-the-january-2017-al-shabaab-attack-on-the-kdf-base-at-kulbiyow/
https://www.africandefence.net/analysis-of-competing-claims-about-the-january-2017-al-shabaab-attack-on-the-kdf-base-at-kulbiyow/#commentsWed, 22 Mar 2017 19:15:48 +0000https://www.africandefence.net/?p=3472UPDATE: It seems that Jacob Beeders over at Bellingcat scooped this one by a couple of hours: https://www.bellingcat.com/news/africa/2017/03/21/happened-kulbiyow-somalia-open-source-investigation/

Their analysis is supported here – that the Al-Kataib imagery can be matched to various parts of the NTV footage filmed after the attack (ironically in a KDF-run press tour intended to discredit Al-Shabaab claims to have overrun the base). In some places, our and Bellingcat’s specific points of analysis and verification match (for instance, stills of the makeshift church with the blue tarpaulin and of three distinctly parked vehicles). The following includes some additional material from The Nation and the NTV base tour, and further matches these sources against satellite imagery of the base, and Al-Kataib imagery.

The 27 January Al-Shabaab attack on a KDF base at Kulbiyow followed a familiar pattern for attacks on military bases in the region, in more ways than one. Not only did the initially reported details of the attack seem all too familiar (an early morning VBIED followed by a massed ground assault by militants), but conflicting media reports, claims and denials in the aftermath of the attack, also followed a recognizable pattern.

Early media reports largely repeated the basics of an Al-Shabaab press announcement (which came out on the same day as the attack). These reports were supposedly corroborated to some extent by local media through witness reports, and described the KDF base as being overrun, with heavy casualties inflicted on KDF forces. Incidentally, the Kulbiyow attack took place one year and a few days after a very similar attack on another KDF base, at el-Adde, further north in Somalia. There, Al-Shabaab fighters of the overrun with heavy casualties. There, as at Kulbiyow, the immediate response from KDF press relations, and the Kenyan Defence Ministry, was to issue denials of reports that heavy casualties had been suffered and a base overrun. In the case of el-Adde, months later, the KDF was forced to later admit that the garrison had been almost entirely wiped out (140+ KIA).

In the days following the Kulbiyow attack, Al-Kataib, the media arm of al-Shabaab, released a set of images purportedly from the attack. The KDF and Kenyan Ministry of Defence doubled down on its counter-claims that reports of heavy KDF casualties were false, and that it was the militants who had in fact suffered a beating.

Kenyan media also interviewed Major Dennis Girenge, the base commander at the time of the attack, who outright denied reports that the base had been overrun. Girenge had been evacuated for gunshot wounds. In the same article, another soldier, who was also wounded and claimed to have played dead among his dead compatriots at a machine gun post, described seeing truckloads of dead Al-Shabaab militants being carried away.

The competing accounts of the battle can be divided into two broad narratives:

The Al-Shabaab claim, reported by some local media and supposedly corroborated by witnesses : That the base was overrun; Heavy KDF casualties; Vehicles were destroyed and equipment looted

Digging into the specifics made available in the various accounts provide a wide range of overlapping details, several minor inconsistencies that could be chalked up to misinterpretation or minor confusion. But the central points of disagreement are significant.

The imagery released by Al-Kataib appears to show a base that has been, or is in the process of being overrun. While that imagery does show several KDF casualties, it does not show the 50+ casualties claimed by Al-Shabaab. Nevertheless, it does show militants within the perimeter of the base. If the base is not completely overrun, then the images of flags being raised over burning vehicles and bunkers, while militants wander about, carrying away arms and ammunition, must at least suggest a base’s perimeter was breached and defensive forces were suppressed, for at least some period of time. That would run contrary to the main thrust of the narrative put forward by the KDF – that the attack was comprehensively defeated.

This then raises a question of verification: is the Al-Kataib imagery in fact from Kulbiyow?

A starting point in this regard, was to locate the base itself.

The base location – on the Kenyan border

A 2014 satellite images showing the base (circled in red), alongside the border, with Kulbiyow/Kolbio town to the east.

Progress on the development of the base at Kulbiyow from 2002 through to 2014

December 2016 imagery of the base. Note the extended second perimeter fence, and large deadzone of cleared brush, and the half-moon of tents outside of the main perimeter.

THE MEDIA TOUR

In the aftermath of the attack, the KDF invited media to visit the base. During tour, video footage of the base was shot from the helicopter carrying The Nation press team. A horse-shoe shaped collection of structures can be seen, visible in the 2016 satellite imagery.

The tour itself starts with possible explosions in the background from an unknown source – disturbed carrion birds fly off and plumes of dust or smoke are visible as the soldiers look around hurriedly. “All is well, all is well” says the tour leader, Major George Osano – the new base commander.

During a tour of a crater outside the base perimeter, Major George Odanga explains that indirect fire destroyed a VBIED – leaving behind the crater. Leaf springs, described by Odanga as intentionally stored in the vehicle to serve as extra shrapnel, are neatly piled in a hole. This site is described as being 600m from camp – which Odanga specifically claims is the closest that the militants got to the base.

“Where is the rest of this vehicle?” “That is the engine … you are lucky you got the engine”.

Remnants of a VBIED, purportedly destroyed by indirect mortar fire – an unlikely claim on its own, and also in contradiction of other accounts from interviews which said the first VBIED was engaged by either an RPG or an 84mm weapon (possibly an M3 Carl Gustav).

MATCHING SATELLITE IMAGES TO DRONE FOOTAGE

The NTV special ends with an additional snippet of aerial imagery made available by the KDF – a short, sped-up video feed from a drone that purportedly observed the base on the day of the attack. The NTV news team mistakenly calls it “satellite video surveillance of the camp”. In the video, per KDF claims, KDF personnel are visible in the base after having defeated Al-Shabaab militants. The video itself is inconclusive in this regard (there is no way to independently verify if the figures seen in the video are in fact KDF personnel). However, this video proves to be vital for tying together the available satellite imagery to on-the-ground images from both the NTV base tour, and the Al-Kataib imagery purportedly showing Al-Shabaab militants during the attack.

Stitched together stills from the KDF drone footage of the base on the day of the attack matches the December 2016 satellite imagery of the candidate site.

Further commonality with satellite imagery of the candidate site – the perimeter dotted with bunkers, and collection of bunkers within that perimeter again appear similar (if not conclusively so) with the satellite imagery. The major geographic points of commonality are the peculiar bodies of water within the base.

The drone video feed is uncensored – telemetry reveals the altitude, orientation, and latitude/longitudinal coordinates of the drone at the time of recording. While somewhat imprecise (for unknown reasons) – they appear to put it in the general vicinity of the primary candidate base.

Notables in the drone feed images are:

Scorch marks around bunkers several bunkers and vehicles

Some vehicles are visible – but oddly dispersed on and within the perimeter.

Together, the satellite imagery, NTV ground and aerial video, and KDF drone video appear to show the same site.

Next up: Verifying the Al-Kataib imagery:

THE MORTAR PIT

During the NTV video, the news crew are treated to a (somewhat awkwardly choreographed) live-firing of the mortar to demonstrate how the weapon was employed during the attack. (As a side note, the round appears to be a live).

During the sequence, a shelter is visible which appears to match a similar structure seen in an Al-Kataib image.

Note the sandbag barrier, the door-way of the shelter, the makeshift cot inside the shelter, and the vehicle tire against the HESCO barrier.

THE CHURCH

In another still taken from the NTV footage, a blue structure is briefly seen in the background. This appears to match a structure shown in the Al-Kataib images:

The same blue building (makeshift church which Al-Shabaab militants are seen inside).

THE THREE TRUCKS AND TANKER

Three cargo trucks and a water tanker – seen in the Al-Kataib footage from the base attack, in the KDF drone footage shown during the NationTV report, and in the December 2016 satellite imagery.

THE GREEN AND GREY ROOFS

In a The Nation article relating to the NTV visit to Kulbiyow, several stills taken by the press crew show the base on the ground and from the air. One image appeared to be a good candidate to match against the three trucks – but appears to be slightly off target (and the trucks might have been moved in the 10 days since the attack). Nonetheless, the image shows at least one permanent structure, and one of the two prominent geographic features of the base – large pools of water.

An image from the Al-Kataib release, showing an Al-Shabaab militant (note the red scarf worn by the attackers) advancing toward a grey-roofed house – a rare permanent structure among all of the makeshift shelters.

Two Al-Shabaab militants carry an LMG mount past several vehicles. The green roofed house is visible on the right of the image.

A second Al-Kataib still image, panned right from the previous image – note the green roofed house, the front of a HMMWV and red and white marker stick. Further to the right of this image is a green shack, and a grey-roofed stone building house.

THE MYSTERY ARTILLERY

Within the HESCO barriers is an artillery piece. Two such weapons are shown in more detail below.

105-mm L5 Pack Howitzer derived from an Italian OTO Melara Mod 56. These may be sourced from the UK military or they may be a Norinco-made Type 56 clones. The fate of these weapons is unknown.

THE MACHINE GUN POST

In another The Nation still image from the NTV press visit to the base, some KDF soldiers are seen manning a post on the perimeter. On the right of the structure is a Carl Gustav launcher, presumably to guard against VBIEDs. The structure appears to be the same that was seen in one of the Al-Shabaab still images from the attack:

Concluding remarks

Verifying the location of the attack does not in turn automatically verify the Al-Kataib video – but it appears fairly safe to conclude that that imagery is indeed really from Kulbiyow. That, in and of itself is interesting, since that imagery was released before the NTV piece, and interviews with the base commander.

In addition, it must be asked that, if not from Kulbiyow, where would that imagery have come from? What was the mindset behind the KDF’s blanket denials of the authenticity of the imagery?

It should be noted that, as always, the imagery released by Al-Kataib, is fundamentally propaganda material. It is intended to convey a particular message, and could be purposefully manipulated and shaped to portray a particular narrative of events on that day.

At this stage, the following conclusions can be drawn: the KDF did not handily fend off the Al-Shabaab attack as it claims. The perimeter was indeed breached – and sufficiently so to allow the Al-Shabaab militants to loot the base.

Sometime in the coming months (following previous release timetables for post-attack propaganda by Al-Shabaab through Al-Kataib), a video of the attack will likely be released. That video will show the ground assault, probably from multiple camera angles. It may give some clues as to the intensity of the fighting at the base perimeter, and inside the base. It may show whether KDF forces were coordinated in their defence, or not, and whether or not they retreated. Some media accounts, citing anonymous KDF personnel, claimed that portions of the defensive force retreated from the base, and presumably later returned. Such a scenario would best match what appears to be evident so far.